Inspired by the road trips posted in the namesake subforum, I decided to make a report of my last road trip, which I did on April 18-19 to the forests of Soria province, central Spain. Since it only covers roads outside the U.S. or Canada, I post it here in International Highways. Also, I changed times to Eastern U.S., actually it was six hours latter.
So let's get started. I left home at 4:30 a.m. on April 18 and headed South on A-23. This freeway was built on late 90s, and at first it was numbered N-330 until the 2003 renumbering took place. I got off on exit 332 and went West on A-1209, which is a good road despite being a second tier regional road. This road ends at A-124, which I took North. At first it wasn't in good shape, then it gets better. After that I hit A-125 and went West. This section has some long straights where I did 75 mph. Since I had not been to Ejea after the bypass was completed I drove all of it. Then A-125 gets worse. Some distance after that, works are ongoing to bypass a couple of bends, and right after that the road enters Navarre, becoming NA-125 there. I drove all of it to Tudela, which I bypassed on NA-134 and A-68. Then I headed South on N-121-C. So many towns in it! Then I re-entered Aragon. Due to the Navarre section being maintained by the Chartered Community rather than the Ministry of Public Works (Actually and except for AP-68, every damn road in Navarre is maintained by the Chartered Community even if it bears a national number!), this road has two different designations in 12 miles: N-121-C in Navarre and plain N-121 in Aragon (Google is wrong, however I decided to go with it), strange for a national road. I then made a rest stop in Tarazona. It was 6:40 a.m.
After get something for dinner (In Spain we have some strange habits), I resumed the trip at 8:00 a.m. on N-122 West. The Ãgreda bypass is full freeway standard and thus signed A-15, which should eventually reach Tudela, but not anytime soon. The rest of N-122, and every road I drove in Soria province, was in good condition. I bypassed Soria (Not Syria :sombrero:) on SO-20 and then I went on N-234 West (Actually I don't know which direction should assign to it, because in Teruel province it runs North-South!), eventually reaching my final destination, San Leonardo de Yagüe, at 9:40 a.m.
After running a couple of races there, at 8:00 a.m. on April 19 I started the return trip by undoing N-234 back to Soria and taking SO-20 South. The bypass road soon becomes a freeway and heads South. The zero milestone of SO-20 (and thus the point it becomes A-15) is in the middle of nowhere, actually this marks where the A-11/A-15/SO-20 interchange will be. I continued South until Almazán on this lightly travelled freeway (Note that traffic jams are known to occur even in North Korea, so don't compare this with that), then I got off to get on CL-116 East. Upon entering Aragon it becomes the much worse A-116, fortunately this only lasts 2.5 miles until hitting A-2, a so-called 'first generation expressway' which used to be a badly built duplication of N-II until it was rebuilt few years ago. I took it East... but first for only another 2.5 miles, because I exited to Ariza, where I arrived at 9:40 a.m.
After a quick tour (I had already been to Ariza earlier) I hopped back onto A-2 East. I knew it is actually shorter than posted, so I measured it with my car. My measurements shown that A-2 from Ariza to Z-40 near Zaragoza is actually 3.5 miles shorter than what is signposted!!! Since I did this on the closest section to Zaragoza a few weeks before, I decided to stop again in a service area near Épila to post the results to another forum :sombrero:, then I continued to Z-40 beltway, then took the N-330 shortcut (There is no time difference to go on this or continuing to A-23 a couple miles latter) to A-23 North, back to Huesca. I arrived home at 1:00 p.m.
Some quick facts: I averaged a whooping 42 miles per gallon in this trip, using about three quarters of a 12.4 gal tank to go 390 miles. I clinched A-125 West of Ejea, all of NA-125, NA-134 around Tudela, all of N-121-C (except for a mile inside Tudela), SO-20 South of N-122/N-234, A-15 from SO-20 to Almazán, CL-116 East of Almazan, and all of A-116.